Origin of the Earth

An unsuccessful attempt to correct an error
on young-earth creationist websites Part 2

What some supporters of an old earth conclude about the leap second:

They are
certain that the believers in a young earth have misunderstood the
source and the significance of leap seconds. New earth creationists' estimates
of the rate of deceleration of the earth's rotation are incorrect by a
factor of almost 200 times.

As described above, the length of a year has lengthened by about
0.73 seconds over the 190 years since 1820. This is a lengthening of about
0.004 seconds per year, not 0.73 seconds as some young earth creationists
believe. Since their calculations are in error, their conclusions about the
age of the earth are not valid.

In the 2070s, the accumulated error will probably exceed one second per year.
This will require
at least one leap second in most years, and two leap seconds in some years.
Of course, with so many factors influencing the deceleration rate, it is
difficult to extrapolate far into the future.

The insertion of a leap second in
most years is not directly related to the current value of deceleration.
In fact, if the earth stopped decelerating and achieved a constant
speed, there would still be a need to continue to insert leap seconds in
most years.

Eventually, so many leap seconds will have to be inserted each year that
the process will become onerous. Scientists will then probably change their base
date from 1820 CE to something more recent.

If the scientists revise the base year to, say, 2000, then they
would not have to insert a leap second for many years.

Recapping the results:

Some new earth creationists suggest that the length of a day 4.5 billion
years ago would have been extremely short, to the point where the earth
would be rotating so quickly that it would have quickly
flattened into the shape of a pancake. Alternatively, if the rotation were reasonable 4.5
billion years ago, the earth would have slowed down to a crawl by now. They
thus conclude that the earth is young.

Scientists have measured the length of a day and have found an
increase of about 0.004 seconds a year in recent years, -- not about 0.73
seconds as some creation scientist believe. Young earth creation scientists are out by a
factor of about 190 times because of their misunderstanding of the leap second
insertion. Thus, their conclusions are invalid.

Sponsored link:

An attempt to discuss the deceleration "proof" with
creation science webmasters:

Proving a young earth on the basis of the leap seconds and deceleration of
the earth's rotation is clearly in error. It is based on a misunderstanding, on
the part of some creation scientists, of how time
is calculated. This error has been picked up by numerous supporters of creation
science and added to their websites.

The author of this essay is a supporter of the theory of evolution, and thus
of an old earth. However, he attempts to write essays on both evolution,
creation science, and the age of the earth in a balanced manner, explaining the
beliefs and the bases for those beliefs of both creation scientists and
supporters of evolution. He decided to attempt to discuss the error in the deceleration "proof"
with some creation scientists. If they could be persuaded that their "proof" is
in error, then they might remove it from their websites. This would be a
win-win situation:

The cause of creation science would benefit, because the invalid
"proof" of a young earth would be withdrawn. Their credibility would
increase in the minds of the public.

The cause of evolution would benefit, because the creation scientists
would have one fewer "proof" of a young earth.

On 2002-JAN-3, the author E-mailed the webmasters responsible for 15 creation
science essays which contained the deceleration "proof."

Unfortunately, by mid-2005, many of the URLs have since been broken. Some
websites have been closed down; others have been reorganized with different
file names. So, many of the hyperlinks are not valid today.

You can still find them by Googling
pancake earth rotation. On 2005-JUL we found about 2,750 hits. A bunch of
them are young-earth creationist websites. On 2011-FEB we repeated the search and found about 20,400 hits. In spite of the belief being clearly in error, it seems to be becoming more widespread.

Responses:

2002-JAN-4: One webmaster thanked us for our interest.
However, they will not change their website because it is an archive of
previously published materials. Thus, accuracy is unimportant.

2002-JAN-7: A second webmaster responded, but said that there
are no inaccuracies in Scott Huse's book.

2002-JAN-9: A third webmaster responded, asking for
information on our identity and motivation. They also asked for more
information about the error.

2002-JAN-14: A fourth webmaster thanked us for our E-mail.

2002-MAY-16: The remaining 11 webmasters had not replied to
our E-mail.

2002-JUL-12: Dr Luke Randall of WasDarwinRight.com
responded to our query. However, his site leaves the original error in
place. 1 He wrote that he has many quotes from
scientists which suggest that many dating methods are equivocal. "It
is not a crime to present a differing viewpoint."

Conclusions:

As of 2011-FEB, no further responses have been received; none are
expected.

None of the 15 websites has been changed. Persuading the webmasters of these creation
science websites to correct their error appears to be quite impossible. In
fact, dialog seems to be as hopeless as attempting to herd cats.

One author, a supporter of an old earth, commented on the continuing use of the deceleration/pancake "proof"
by creation scientists, even though their error has been pointed out to
them many times. It seems applicable here:

"I really don't blame them for making this mistake
initially. We are all entitled to a few mistakes. But this does not
justify keeping this claim going for years and years. My question is, why
is this claim still being made?" 2

Path forward:

The author honestly expected that some level of sincere dialog would
occur. He hoped that this project would be successful, and that a number
of webmasters would delete their earth-slowing "proof" from their web
sites. If that had happened, then his intention was to attempt continue
the process by trying to convince
creation science webmasters to remove other false "proofs" of a young
earth. Among the most popular are indicators based on:

The decay of the Earth's magnetic field.

The recession of the Moon from the Earth.

The age of trees.

Population growth.

The temperature of the earth's core.

The second law of thermodynamics.

The experiment has convinced the author that meaningful dialog is
probably impossible. Supporters of creation science -- at least the 15 contacted
-- seem to be totally resistant to change. Further attempts to correct these
websites are probably not worth
pursuing.